A Whiter Shade of Pale
by cemerellis
Summary: -Ishidacentric- Let me be a boy who never had to plead for warmth behind eyes that were masked by ice and steel, a boy who never had to look at a smile and know that it was forever branded by tears…
1. Chapter 1: The Rain Shadow

**A Whiter Shade of Pale**

Summary: _Let me be a boy__ who has never looked upon darkness, who has never watched the world through the stories from anothe__r person's mouth. Let me be a boy who never had to rely on the grudge of anger and revenge to hide the guilt of weakness, who never had to bear a hole in my soul before I was even given the chance of being whole. Let me be a boy who never had to plead for warmth behind eyes that were masked by ice and steel, a boy who never had to look at a smile and know that it was forever branded by tears…_

Disclaimer: I love Ishida, but I was not bound to him by marriage or by copyright, so…me no own.

**Chapter 1: The Rain Shadow**

In the faint light on the moon Ishida Uryuu looked from the underground training facility of his father, moonbeams breaking against soul-synthesized glass and throwing strange patterns on walls and platforms made of soul-tempered silver. He sat with his back against the wall, long legs splayed out with and without grace in front of him, blue eyes losing their intensity for a moment, lost in far-away thought. He felt tired, very tired, a weariness that was not in the limbs but in the soul. Outside a light draft of snow fell; the shadow of flakes falling amplified against the glass and dancing a downward descent on the floor, and he was reminded of dust that was caught in a ray of light. How long ago had he thought that that floating dirt had been the stuff of fairytales, had tried to catch them in his hands before they disappeared, believing that he could weave magic out of thin air? He tried it now, with the snow-shadows, reached out and opened his hands and tried to retain what he could catch in his palms.

Instead of the innocence of fairy-dust his hands learned to wield power from stark nothingness. That moment in his past, under the rays of the sun, with his hands held out to catch dust, seemed as far away as another lifetime.

He was tired, so very tired. But the Winter War is near. Inoue is safe, she was protected by people more powerful than he, secure in the love and companionship and the devotion of those closest to her heart. Aizen would have to walk over dead bodies if the traitor had sent out to retrieve her again himself. Ishida could forget about her.

He, in fact, was supposed to forget about all of them.

He should. Because the Winter War is near, and he was so very tired.

In his heart of hearts Ishida Uryuu wonders if there is a place for him anywhere, be it in the Living World, Seireitei, or even in Hueco Mundo. It felt the same no matter what universe or 

dimension or godforsaken place he went- there was no connection at all. He spent his life in a daze, going through life with the monotony of a wheel turning, ministrations similar day after day after day. He thought he had found acceptance in Kurosaki's little group, but despite what comfort he could derive from their companionship it made him feel like he was a simple onlooker in their world. He thought they could be the anchor that could keep him held down to reality, but even as he walked with them, talked, ate with them, he couldn't shake off the feeling of detachment. The feeling that he was just an body floating on through his days, that he was as intangible as air and that even if he was existing in the forefront at the same time he was slowly fading into the background. He envies Kurosaki his exuberance, Inoue her vibrance, even Keigo and Mizuiro for their ability to be palpable in this world that had never needed, or even noticed, his existence.

He was an invisible entity.

That fact was made more concrete by his father's indifference. He only existed when Ryuuken was shooting arrows at him, snapping out criticisms, or otherwise tearing down his already frayed self-confidence. _You have no talent. You are foolish; you'd die within minutes into battle because you are weak_. The words he always heard though they weren't spoken, words pushing him down, pulling him back, holding in what he could accomplish, simply because they had been repeated so often he started to believe them himself.His father once indirectly called him a coward. But it was not a cowardice that stemmed from fear or timidity, it was something that had been conditioned into him by cold words and even colder looks, until he had no choice but to surrender what self-regard he had left. That inability to believe in himself was what others perceived as cowardice. His father didn't realize that what he is, who he is, what he could think, what he could feel- what he could do- was molded by those words. Ryuuken had forced him into a state suspended between protector and protected, person saving and person being saved. It was Ryuuken who made him, Ryuuken who molded him; Ryuuken who brought him into existence and took his ability to exist the day Uryuu walked out of their house and didn't walk back.

Because he was told he would die, because he was told he was foolish, because he was told he had no talent. He was a coward because he knew that the musical whistle resounding as he released his spirit arrows were just faint undertones to the cold voice telling him he is weak.

Natsuhiboshi, Suboshi, Hokiboshi. Orihime, the wishing star. When he was too worn-out from training Ishida Uryuu will look up at the moon, and sort out each star, naming them in turns. It was his sickly mother who turned his face to the heavens and taught him each name. When he is tired and couldn't manage anything but lean against a cool high wall and look out the transparent glass to the skies, he will recite their names, one by one. The window is wide and big, and sometimes, when he feels that familiar emptiness in the pit of his stomach and feels a coldness like an icy hand gripping his chest, when he surrenders himself to the unfamiliar but welcome, repulsive longing, want, and yearning that takes hold of his mind and does not let go, he will trace the constellation of stars his mother had made for him. It spanned the entire sky sometimes, the winding expansive pattern his mother had called Rain Dragon. Because the constellation is large, and hard to pinpoint, by the time he is finished despair will have crept up to him, slowly, that he is caught unawares, with his eyes of clear blue raised up to the stars.

He wonders what role he has in this life. For surely everybody has his own function in his own existence. What is he in their unnatural little group? Ichigo is the infallible strength, Chad the unshakeable pillar, Inoue claims the place of the heart. Rukia is guidance and Renji is companionship.

But what is he?

_Luna. _Moon. He is the other side of that celestial orb, the dark night that blankets the midnight sky. He is that small place in everybody's needs, the dark corner in everyone's mind, that little room behind closed doors where failed dreams and hopes seek refuge, where sorrow claims and despair consumes; that place beyond the sun where guilt resides and marks like a brand.

_I am the place where rain falls. _He is the place where one walks through mud and stumbles and falls face-first, and realizing that there is no longer any strength to stand up alone, one looks up but meets empty skies and misses the feel of hands held out to help. The place where strength fails and pillars crumble, where hearts break like glass, guidance leads astray, and companionship finally deserts. That dark empty spot, unresolved, unrecognized, forsaken.

With little effort he recognizes that he is the one who was supposed to accept all the pain, the lost hopes and the sorrows, the one expected to carry the burden over his heart, like a pendant on a chain. _I am the rain dragon. I carry the tears of the sky._

He is that memory that everyone else has forgotten, the sorrow that everyone else denies.

He is the pain beneath the smile, the pleas for affection from behind closed eyes.

The insanity that no one sees.

He is that secret, secret place, that resolution that is the haven of tears. 


	2. Chapter 2: Light and Air And a Gust of W

**A Whiter Shade of Pale**

Summary: _Let me be a boy__ who has never looked upon darkness, who has never watched the world through the stories from anothe__r person's mouth. Let me be a boy who never had to rely on the grudge of anger and revenge to hide the guilt of weakness, who never had to bear a hole in my soul before I was even given the chance of being whole. Let me be a boy who never had to plead for warmth behind eyes that were masked by ice and steel, a boy who never had to look at a smile and know that it was forever branded by tears…_

A/N: Bloody, I bloody love you. Thank you for the review! 'Tis chapter is for you! It's Renji and Uryuu goodness. Oh, Death/Messenger might be on hiatus for a while. My plot bunnies starved from a lack of carrots.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. The only bleach I have is the one you use for clothes. I command the Lawyers to scoot, or I shall call forth my Kinky Final Form…

**oooooo**

**Chapter 2: Light and Air and a Gust of Wind**

_What is in a soul that makes one a Quincy? What is in a heart that makes a person so different from someone else? What is in a body that forces limits…?_

When the Quincy said he had a last resort, Abarai had no idea. He shouldn't have let the boy out of his sight, should have known that the archer would try something deadly and dangerous and stupid. Sure what he does works half the time, but… everything the boy does always asks for something in return. Like his powers for that Quincy Final Form in Seireitei. Or that Sprenger that barely worked but depleted his energy. _Stupid, stupid Renji. Even that Urahara had asked to keep an eye on him. _They had all been worried about the Quincy. Something had happened to the archer that he wasn't showing anywhere near the surface, but he, Renji, just pushed it out of his mind, confident in the boy's strength too much to worry. He knew the archer wouldn't break easily. But why the hell is his spirit energy waning so suddenly? Had the boy tried that 'last resort' and failed?

Moving hurt Abarai. They were all fighting battles before this, but then the First Espada had appeared in front of them, and it was all down hell from then on.

A blood-red cero suddenly flashed in the periphery of his vision, and he knew before he felt the sensation of skin and muscles tearing off his left side.

He suddenly stumbled and lost his footing, dust flying up when he hit the ground hard. Abarai winced as he lay in that vulnerable position. He tried to flex the muscles of his left arm but the pain shooting up stopped him from trying. He knew by the smell that the cero must have burned his arm seriously. Battle wounds that raced up and down his body added to the exhaustion and the pain. He rolled to get into a supine position, the movement vehemently protested by every fiber in his body. _Damn. _The dust and the smoke clouded his vision, but he could feel the faint pulse of his dark-haired _nakama's _spirit energyin the distance, the distinct feeling of cold associated with the Quincy's energy mixed with the raging aggression that seemed to be associated with every Espada. Thankful for the brief respite from the fight, Renji's mind wandered off the events preceding the Winter War. There was something different about Ishida, definitely. The archer had not been acting as he normally did- the arrogance was cut down, the sarcastic comments were missing, and the Quincy most often looked at 

them with a faint mark of indifference in his blue eyes. That shop-owner mentioned under his breath that Ishida seemed to be acting more and more like his father. Hell, he didn't even know the archer had a father.

But anyway… Cero, check. He must be near. That fact just made him wince that if he was that near and the Quincy's aura was that weak, the boy must be losing. Badly. Why in hell wasn't he quick enough to follow the boy when he said he was going to move farther away?

Something clutched cold at his heart when Ishida's spirit energy suddenly stopped altogether. He felt the panic in his mouth rising. The boy couldn't have been-

Abarai Renji felt the pulse of reiatsu that washed over him; a feeling as soothing as a cool hand over a feverish forehead. And yet that cold seized something within his heart, for it also felt like the cold of lifeless limbs. There was something wrong. There was something terribly, terribly wrong.

**Oooooo**

When he told Abarai not to follow, he wished the Shinigami had enough sense in him to obey. He didn't want anyone to witness this, his fall, his rise, his descent towards immolation that never should be witnessed by a living soul. But he felt the redhead's aura flaring somewhere near, and for some frozen moment, he wondered if it was wrong for him to just be a little glad that somebody would witness this. He wished he could tell Abarai what he was doing, and why. But there was no time.

Only time enough to explain again, to himself, why he should do this.

The smell of burnt flesh reached his nose. He remembered this smell, this stench that was so familiar because it visited him in his sleep. At first it was only the corpses of his tribe that he saw in his dreams, but recently he caught glimpses of a torn flowered shirt or a scorched hairpin, and often of familiar swords stuck into mounds of soil framed in dark silhouettes, for the sun always sets in a battlefield in his dreams. And whenever he sees this, it was no longer the fear that he was not able to avenge, but rather the terror that he was not able to protect that grips his heart. And he wakes up, shaken, shivering, the forming mantra of _you are weak, you have no talent, you will die _runs over and over in his head. He tries not to listen. Because if he did, he knew most certainly, that if he listened, the smell of burnt flesh and the bittersweet smell of decay would no longer just be a part of his dreams.

He suffered one gaze at the shimmering cross hovering in his right palm. _I have to protect what I can with these hands. Do what I must with this strength. _

There was only the silent vow in his hands, and the fragment of a dream, when he closed his eyes and closed his hand over his cross. The chiming sound that resounded reminded him of bells ringing far-off…

_A Quincy's cross is the focus of his energy. It was made from silver that was tempered with the person's soul itself. The cross itself is a part of the person's soul, in the very seat of his heart. The fact that it is material is a mark of a Quincy's humanity, but the fact that it is the fragment of a soul makes it more than corporeal. To shatter a Quincy cross is a symbol, a sign that a Quincy has given up on what makes him human and is ready to rise above the physical. But to put it simply, shattering a Quincy cross is equal to shattering the human heart- an act that renders what is mortal in a Quincy to die. The day Uryuu tore his Sanrei glove his being a Quincy was sealed in favor of him being _

_human, but the day that he broke his cross his human part was sealed in favor of his Quincy soul. Both methods offered power. Both methods asked for something in return. Uryuu paid for the Sanrei glove with the sealing of his power, but with the cross he will pay for it for his life. Because to shatter a Quincy cross is to commit suicide in its purest form. _

He knew the process, expected the pain, but was he did not anticipate was the sadness. The warmth engulfing him. The raw heat of his body tearing up and melting into silver flames. He did not expect to hear Abarai's voice in the background, telling him to stop.

_A life is willingly given up to gain power. It will take a while for the transcendence to be complete. When a cross is broken, the material body is burnt away to reveal the soul purely. It will be painful. It will be sad. But it will not be something he regrets. Without the limitations of being human Uryuu would achieve the pinnacle of Quincy power and even achieve what lies beyond. But when his human body is consumed by the silver flames, he will not be able to go back. _

It was a pulse of raw power that he felt, a silent roar that rang in his ears, resonated over the face of the earth, carried over by the flow of the wind. The pulse of the Quincy power that made even the Lord of Hueco Mundo look up and wonder. Spirit threads that were pure white whispered against his body.

**Oooooo**

When a torn piece of spirit thread dissipated against his face, Renji felt the shallow cut, but he didn't care. His long red hair billowed roughly against his face, pulled from its bonds by the wind, but he didn't push away the intrusion. Something inside him was tearing. What he was seeing just wasn't right. In that clear part of his mind that recognized that the archer was gaining power by the second, there was also that voice screaming at him that the archer is dying.

He wanted to move, to tear the Quincy from the flames, but he couldn't. Not even when he saw the Espada move to attack, he stood there, frozen, unable to accept what happened. He vaguely processed a scream; saw the shadow looming over the archer burst into pieces and _dissolve _within the grasps of the archer's threads. The spirit energy of the Espada disappeared so quickly, like it had never been there. But he also sees the pieces that tore away from Ishida's body and melted into the flames.

_Open your mouth. Open that big mouth and tell him to stop. _

"-"

_What happened to you? Are you terrified you'd be absorbed too? Do something! He'll die!_

_"_-i-"

_Renji! _The vision turned and smiled. The white glare had lessened to a tolerable level, a faint glow that illuminated Ishida's skin. The smile is soft and sad. The blue eyes were clear and even and still.

"Ishidaaaa!!"

**Oooooo**

It was the enraged yell that pulled him from his trance. It was the hand that clutched at his so tightly, the ragged breathing at his right, the wild hair and tired body nearly slumped to the ground, that made him questions his actions. He knew he could no longer control the energy whether he wanted it to enter his body or not, that he would continue to absorb from wherever source his body could find. Even if it was a living soul.

No. He tugged at Renji's hand, desperately trying to pull away. But the hand clutched his wrist insistently, with an intensity so strong it was starting to hurt. He heard Renji's breathing slowing down. A ruby eye looked out at him from the tangle of red hair. The shadow of a feral smirk.

"…not…letting go…already did that…'was a mistake…"

Oh, but you'll die. I'll kill you. He wanted desperately to say that. He wanted to slap it in the Shinigami's face. Wanted to say it out loud. And maybe he did, because the next second his eyes grew wide as the red-haired Shinigami pulled to his feet, the heavier frame and taller body looming over him.

"If…you don't want me to die… you'll stop. Inoue… the wounds… she'll heal you. No matter the extent, she'll-" Renji swayed and almost fell over him. He caught the heavier body, his mind protesting at the contact. The closer the shinigami is, the more he'll be absorbed. But any protest was stopped when he realized Renji was still whispering against his ear. Telling him that Inoue could heal him, bring him back, make him whole again. It was a nice hope, but it was impossible. She may be able to bring back even those that are dead by her will- but that in itself was the limit to her power. She couldn't turn back something that was willfully brought about. She couldn't give him back the body he chose to destroy. She couldn't save the life he chose to sacrifice.

"...no. I'm broken. I know I can't be saved."

He knows he can't, and the damage will continue to over his body, only this time from inside and all the more slowly. But he stopped the transcendence, because if he couldn't be saved, at least he could save Renji. At the very least he wouldn't lose one he wanted to protect.

He tensed with the redhead's reply. _Thank you. _He had said thank you.

"I'm too damaged, Renji…" He felt the darkness and the cold before it claimed him, and the frantic clutch of hands against his skin.

**Oooooo**

He could only hold out a bloody hand, gasp out a name. Zabimaru lay a few feet away, bloodied as well, and he no longer had any strength to will his sword to him. But that man, that _traitor-_ the archer was prone in that man's arms, unconscious and terribly pale. Uryuu looked like a doll just waiting to be bent in those hands. How did this happen? How could that man suddenly step in, strike, and take Ishida like he had been some thing left to be picked up?

With all the strength in his body he stretched out his arm towards the traitor, who simply left him with a smile and turned his back. But he didn't have any strength. He could only reach so far…

TBC


	3. Chapter 3: Because I Am Kind

**A Whiter Shade of Pale**

Summary: _Let me be a boy__ who has never looked upon darkness, who has never watched the world through the stories from anothe__r person's mouth. Let me be a boy who never had to rely on the grudge of anger and revenge to hide the guilt of weakness, who never had to bear a hole in my soul before I was even given the chance of being whole. Let me be a boy who never had to plead for warmth behind eyes that were masked by ice and steel, a boy who never had to look at a smile and know that it was forever branded by tears…_

A/N: Oh, beware the Uryuu angst. And Aizen is just evil. I have reason to believe something possessed my fingers as I was writing this… this chapter practically wrote itself.

Disclaimer: I ish not own Bleach-y. But I heart Ishida, who, by the way love.

**Oooooo**

**Chapter 3: Because I Am Kind**

It had been a very, very long time since he's been here- a duration that he measured not in seconds or minutes or hours, but in weariness and the slow desolation that made sucking wet noises against his skin. In this world of infinite moonlight and endless sands, in _this _place of flush white and winding corridors, there was no way to measure the turn-over of time. How long since he has been captured? How long since the Lord of Hueco Mundo picked his body up from among those lying in the battlefield, opened the swirling black cloud of energy that was the Garganta, took him here and made him captive? Was Abarai all right? Were any of them?

He remembered the red-haired Shinigami's frantic clutch against his skin. By the time that Abarai had moved to reach him, he was too tired, too broken, too damaged to sense much of anything. But he did remember those calloused hands, and the way they suddenly slipped from him, and himself falling, falling, before a very different pair of hands stopped the fall. The new hands were soft. They were cool. They felt like knives against his flesh, their mere touch splitting him apart. And before the pain, before the final darkness, he remembered Abarai on the ground, rivulets of blood flowing against his body like a second tattoo, his hair a painful red, the Shinigami reaching out with bloodied hands as the darkness took him away.

He hoped, he _willed, _that Abarai is not dead. That none of the others were. That nobody had to break their promise.

**Oooooo**

He had been washed. He had been touched by hands he did not know, his clothes taken and replaced with his characteristic white and their characteristic black. The silky cloth was too thin to protect against the cold, too silky and soft they slid off his shoulders everytime he moved. But he did not care much about moving now. The only thing he could do was stay there, feel the moonlight 

permanent on his skin, because here, the moon did not wane. He just sat there, unmoving, his dark hair molding like oil into the darkness, his pale skin copying the moonlit hue. And he would have continued on, sitting there, blue eyes blank and empty, if the door to his cell had not creaked open.

The Lord of Hueco Mundo stood there, his back against the light, but Uryuu could see the smile gracing the man's handsome features. The man walked with light footsteps towards him, and coming close, kneeled before him, took his chin in those cool hands and gently asked, with a concern Uryuu had not felt for many years, _Are you all right?_

"Are you all right?" Aizen asked. He was given no answer, just a continuing stare from a pool of deep blue eyes that reflected nothing. He smiled, caressing the soft cheek. The Ishida Uryuu of old would have answered with a snide remark, but this one was different. There was nothing going on within this Uryuu's mind that he could fathom, and though hating to admit it, he was a bit disturbed by the fact. But to fathom a broken toy's mind was not the reason he was here. But it was too bad, all the same, that the boy was subjected to such a fate. Aizen would have enjoyed the Archer's company. He would have made a good antithesis to Ulqiuorra, whose demeanor was cold through and through. From what he heard, beneath the icy attitude, the Quincy was all _fire_.

It would have been exhilarating to have that.

But no, the pretty one had to be raw material for his plans. Too bad, too bad. The soft weight of the boy's fringe rested on the back of his hand, and he thumbed the long lashes on the corner of the archer's eye. Maybe if there was anything left of his body when the transcendence is finished, he'd make a doll, just like this one. One just as lovely, just as spirited, just as similar to the original. Maybe he will, just because he was kind.

He stood up and closed the door, bathing the room in darkness again. He walked over to Uryuu again, the boy never moving a single inch. The blue gaze was fixed at some indeterminable point on the walls. The black and white kimono slid over one shoulder revealing an expanse of skin so white it seemed as if it was breathing the moonlight. When Aizen's eyes moved to the dark head of hair disappearing fluidly into the dark, he felt a stirring within his palms. _It _had reacted to the boy's presence, in a way it never had for the girl, for Aizen, or for any other being. The hougyoku, that one spherical piece of Aizen's plan, felt almost like it was… excited to be in this presence. The Lord of Hueco Mundo smiled. That was one fact down.

Originally he had just wanted the Quincy's ability to absorb spirit particles so he could use it as a medium in channeling the spirit energy in Karakura, in the case that he had to move earlier than expected, because the sphere was incomplete. But after the stunt the boy pulled earlier, breaking apart his cross and proving that he could contain a massive amount of energy within that light little body- possibly even more had his soul been bared completely- he just suddenly became vital to Aizen. He had watched the Quincy tribe for years, looking for any soul and sifting through Mayuri's experiments to find if any had exactly the trait that the boy possessed. The fact that the hougyoku was just _itching_ to unite with the archer was proof that he had found what he was looking for.

Laughably Aizen remembered how Abarai Renji had fought with the archer, almost pleading the boy to keep his body intact, that the girl with healing powers could help him, disbelieving when the Quincy said the damage to the mortal coil is permanent, that there was a limit to the girl's powers, she cannot reject with her will what was brought about by the will of another. If the Shinigami had known that it would have been much better if the body had been lost, that it would have been worse if the body had been intact, Abarai would have changed his mind. Aizen could just imagine the look of horror on those children's faces when they hear their friend scream. Having one's soul forcefully torn away from the body was worse than dying a million deaths. Because the boy _will_ feel his body being torn apart, sense as the pain creeps up, jagged and relentless, against his spine, between every fiber 

in his body, each sensation forceful and sharp and _painful_, overriding his mind and never letting go. For the boy it will be torture. For the Lord of Hueco Mundo, however, it will be entertainment.

But he thought, on a whim, that he might make this a little easier for the boy. Placate him a bit; numb his senses a little, even though it will not make the pain any easier. Maybe he will. Because, after all, he was kind.

**Oooooo**

The Lord of Hueco Mundo turned to him, a long arm held out, palm up. There was something in his hand, a sphere spinning frantically as the white palm opened up. For him, the hougyoku reminded him of things he did not want to consider, of the memories he buried so long ago it was painful to dig them back up. _Tears half-masked by a smile. A sweet scent, cool, soft flesh against his cheek, long warm hair tickling his face. _He realized that this must be the way the hougyoku formed arrancar, dredging up pieces of their forgotten humanity to give them a human form and attaching the broken pieces as a testament to their true nature. _La luna. The moon. It was she who taught him the words. She, his mother, mujara es mas guapa. They said she was too beautiful. It was true. _No. he did not want to remember that look in those eyes, abandonment, it clearly said, a look he had been wearing on his heart's eyes for a while now. But the Lord of Hueco Mundo drew near, and in one swift movement he was dragged up into strong arms that reminded him of another, far more distant yet familiar, of a slight scent of antiseptic and chemicals.

_'What does this remind you of?' _the Lord of Hueco Mundo asked. From the confines of those arms he felt numbly, wildly trying to grasp at what he almost remembered. He heard himself answering, in a voice that was small and distant, a group of sounds that did not even reach his ears. He could no longer form words, _because she took them away- when she died she took all the words. When he ignored me I forgot how to speak. _But what did that embrace remind him of? The time under the sun, the spray of the waterfall, the song of nature, the joy in his hands when he held a bow? Or that smile, warm, understanding, kind. Protection perhaps? A safety he had forgotten how to feel?

'_What does this remind you of?' _The question he had so many answers to. Or a question he did not want to answer. Because somewhere in his mind where there was still a spark, he realized that to answer that question would be to give himself over, fully, completely, that to answer his question was to expose his weakness that was only –

_'Comfort? Warmth?'_

The man had started to speak, to unravel him, peel his skin slowly apart. Expose him to those dead, empty eyes, to a smile that was kind but dishonest.

_'Affection?'_

With a jolt he realize that there could be nothing he can hide from this man, this person who was picking his wounds slowly apart. Watching the sores bleed over, heal, start again. And continue bleeding. He knew this man could humiliate him, torture him over and over again, but one thing he could not permit was that this man show his one limitation, his one weakness-

_'Or could it be… love?'_

-that was only love.

And he felt his last cover tear slowly away, and he knew he was bare for this man to see.

**Oooooo**

He sits again, blanketed by the light of the moon, his face held up to the source of light. He felt empty, drained. He knew the physical pain would start soon. The pressured force of the hougyoku, not even touching him, had sent fire burning on his skin. It _hurt_. And he knew it was just a promise of what was to come. But now he was feeling empty, drained, and he did not know how much more he could feel. Maybe by the time the pain started he would be too numb. But then he would be too lucky. Most probably the Lord of Hueco Mundo would want him to scream.

Before the man turned away, leaving him alone, the young archer had asked why. All he got was a smile, that false kindness before the man left him with an answer.

_Only because I am kind._

_TBC_


End file.
